Tag Archives: honey

Whoever first decided to pair milkshakes with cereal deserves a monument. Only a giant marble shake cup will do, preferably filled with liquid platinum and gold nuggets to stand in for soft serve-soaked cereal nibs. It’s an unexpectedly genius idea: sure, cereal and milk have an esteemed history, but you don’t generally associate an indulgent dessert like a milkshake with anything breakfast related—unless you had a bad night at the casino and want to make one last terrible 4am choice.

Now I may revoke my celebration of the breakfast shake’s inventor if this confection enables the shuddersome creation of cereal-infused cheese, but for now, let’s celebrate this golden age of shakes by uniting sugared cereals and cold cream cylinders in holy gastro-matrimony—at a place that’s literally 50% founded on milkshakes.

Yes, Steak ‘n Shake has 5 new Breakfast Shakes—technically 4, because one is Caramel Latte and you can tell the other shakes are only bringing him along because their moms made them (I’ve been there, buddy…as Caramel Latte). I intend to review all of them—Frosted Flakes, Cocoa Krispies, Cinnamon Crunch, and Honey Smacks—eventually, but based on how late my shake-seeking partner and I made it to The House of Beef and Lactose, I didn’t want to be up until 4am with a sugar-addled brain and an abdomen swollen to the size of a cow’s first three stomachs.

Because at that point, I’d feel terrible enough to go back for a fifth. Continue reading →

Aside from hunting new cereals, Pop-Tarts and Hostess snack cakes (my secret passion—Chocodiles used to be my fudge-slathered white whales), one of my oldest grocery store past times is looking for box art variations of breakfast mainstays.

Sometimes the differences are nuanced and small, like earlier this year when French Toast Crunch’s plain red box adopted a drop shadow, but sometimes classic cereal boxes we’ve come to love dramatically evolve overnight, like metamorphosed sugar-encrusted butterflies emerging from their cardboard chrysalises. As we’ll soon see, French Toast Crunch just did that, too—and so did another long-beloved morning mainstay.

Much like the seismic phenomenon from which it draws its name, a Quakerquake is a tough to predict event that really shakes up the norm. It occurs when Quaker, on a whim, decides to release an onslaught of new products—often of shaky quality—to flood the breakfast aisle with various tan boxes that look identical to the company’s other thousand oatmeal receptacles. This is why aftershocks of a Quakerquake will often be felt months later: they leave the “NEW” label on their flavors so long, you won’t know whether the antioxidant-rich. steel-cut. all-natural apple cinnamon oatmeal came before or after the gluten-free, sugar-free, enjoyment-free apple cinnamon.

I guess with babies (and suckers) born every day, oatmeal is always bound to be new to someone.

Long story short, these new Quaker Honey Vanilla Multigrain Flakes are from the cereal arm of Quaker’s latest a-Quake-ening. It debuts alongside Cranberry Apple Multigrain Flakes and Oats & Honey with Vanilla & Pecan Granola. I chose to review this one first, because even though Cran-Apple is more autumnal, last week’s Shredded Wheat burnt me out on fruit, while the granola simply has too many ampersands to be trusted.

Not since Andre the Giant menacingly knocked on the Honeycomb Hideout’s window have I been so geeked to eat a bowl of Honeycomb cereal.

Sure, the stuff has had fun flavor iterations—Strawberry, Chocolate, Cinna-Graham—and it even briefly got “Twisted Marshmallows” 3 years back in a decades-late attempt to capitalize on the “X-Treme Snax” movement of the radical ’90s. But it has also progressively lost its flavor, as not one, but two ill-received formula changes in the early 2000s left Honeycomb a squishy and styrofoam-y compared to the golden-smacked Golden God it was before the turn of the century.

All that BIG HONEY TASTE Andre had roared about went to go live on a bee farm upstate, so to speak.

But this newly revamped Honeycomb boasts a “bigger flavor,” in a charming homage to those days when the cereal hung its hat on its humongous honey-ness. This change comes in the midst of a wider cereal flavor revolution, as Cocoa Puffs and Krave have added “50% more cocoa” and “more chocolate,” respectively. But while those two put an easy-to-measure qualifier on their taste changes, Honeycomb’s flavor is now simply “bigger,” which could either mean they added more honey or hired fatter bees.

Either way, I’m going to try them while I wait for my Giant sideburns to grow in. Continue reading →

For an impressive 8 (picture two Cheerios stacked on top of each other) years now, Honey Nut Cheerios has been named the best-selling cereal in America.

I would call this unbelievable, but after growing up with a father who exported enough empty Honey Nut Cheerios boxes from our household to build a cardboard replica of the entire Bee Movie set, I’ve experienced first-hand the zealous loyalty this hive-minded cereal can inspire.

But just why does this cereal keep breakfast lovers buzzing nearly 40 years after its introduction? After all, there are other cereals that are sweeter, healthier, or more chocolate chip cookie-shaped. I’ve always wanted to mix some investigative journalism into this blog’s normal stew of reviews and news, so I did some research, flexed my puny graphical muscles, and made an infographic. Click to see it in its full glory:

Are you a true Honey Nut Cheerios bee-liever too? Let me know below just what attracts you to these irresistibly golden-glazed rings. Maybe you and my dad can start a fan club.

Have you ever been eating Honey Nut Cheerios in one hand and Pop Rocks in the other and thought, “Gee, I really wish someone would combine the best of these two completely different foods. That way I could have a free hand for high-fiving strangers, wrangling rattlesnakes, and writing obtusely obscure hypotheticals into online cereal reviews?”

Well think no more and start mindlessly munching, because General Mills’s new Honey Nut Cheerios Granola Snack is about to make your obtuse problem feel a lot more right.

That explains why Bear Naked, a granola brand, has released an inaugural breakfast cereal stuffed with flakes, oat clusters, Winnie the Pooh’s favorite sticky golden elixir of life.

But wait: this new Bear Naked Cereal line also includes Toasted Coconut Clusters and Chocolate Almond Clusters. I’m no zoologist—let alone a grizzlogist—but I don’t think animals in the Ursidae family are known for raiding palm trees or Swiss chocolatiers.

Bamboo Clusters I could understand. Alaskan Salmon Clusters? Sure. But Bear Naked’s gonna have to make a compelling case for these cereals’ accuracy to their source material.

But let’s start with the logical one, shall we? As the buzziest of the three, Sweet Honey Clusters will be the gatekeeper that determines whether I’ll buy the other two—because at roughly $3.99 a box, these bunches cost bunches. Continue reading →

And despite all the bowlfuls of M&M’s Minis I’ve sucked down over the years, M&M’s never have been a cereal, either.

But before you report me to the cops for reviewing something on this blog wholly unrelated to breakfast, hear me out. When I say “Honey Nut,” what’s the first snack you think of?

If you said anything but “Honey Nut Cheerios,” maybe those cops should be on the lookout for a pair of pants on fire instead. Yeah, yeah, there are other acceptable answers, like Honey Nut Shredded Wheat and Honey Nut Chex, but my point still stands:

Breakfast cereal runs the Honey Nut game, so a new Honey Nut M&M’s flavor should be legally considered a cereal, just like how pizza can legally be considered a vegetable.

Whether you agree with me or not, I’m gonna review these bad boys. And whether your eyes are ready for it or not, I’m even gonna try them with milk.

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